Walk The World
by MaverickPaxAPunch
Summary: Pamela was human - a human with no value to her life pleasuring others. She knew of her fatal end until she met a mysterious Mr. Northman, a contradiction of his kind that so mercilessly killed. And suddenly, Pam wished to stand beside him to be who they are - an intelligent whore and an honorable vampire. Pamela knew she must ask one more thing of him - or die trying.
1. I Was Following

**Hi, kiddos. Welcome to my world! I hope you enjoy the way this story unfolds.**

 **Also, I do not own Eric and Pam, although that is quite a shame, because they are fabulous characters. Love always! This will most likely be rated M a little later.**

Pamela was much smarter than her whores. Truly - some of them had more common sense than others, and every woman had her talents, but common sense and intelligence were eons apart. There was Florence, of course. She was young, bright eyed and bushy tailed with effervescent emerald eyes. Oh, was she a charmer, a wonderful addition to Pamela's collection of exotic jolly strumpets. Florence studied French, the fool, while in her off time. The men, of course, wanted nothing to do with _oui oui'_ s and _embrasse-moi vers le bas sous'_ s when they were too asinine to know that she was sweet talking them out of their right, wealthy minds. And in the end, Florence was just a plain old whore.

But Pamela, she was something else. An oxymoron and a pitiful parody of herself to say the least. But either way, she was not a woman of many words. Pathetic speak that did flow from her lonely lips were few and never frivolous, always careful yet sometimes callous. Playing the part of mistress, in any circumstance, as she pleased and pleased and never received pleasure. Oftentimes, she considered herself a merchant in her field - buying, selling, all the will that came in and out of her establishment paid a price, withering and dwindling with time. She knew this, they all did, didn't they? Dignity was the D-Word, X-listed from years of making money and forgetting that her expertise was selling sex servants and paying them depending on their performances.

Pam grimaced into her glass, swirling the contents around until the foam settling at the burgundy top and rested in the liquid center. Wine could not settle her uneasiness, but she might as well try and make it do just that. Her collection of women meandered in the foyer, perched on the laps of gentlemen, luring them away like cobras to the catacombs of the fancified institution. They giggled, they flirted, they showed just enough of their chest. Pamela taught the new ones what she had been taught, what she had mastered over the years.

There went the girls, leading away fine men towards the doorways gilded with bronze, graying drapes and master rooms where their dreams would come true with coins. She watched as Ruby slunk against the wall with a rotund man, spectacles fogging as the two of them disappeared down the farthest left corridor.

"Mr. Erringsworth paid top dollar for her." Florence leaned against the counter, peering at the swirling wine in Pam's glass. Green-blue robin's egg eyes trained on Pam's tapping fingers, and she looked up to her employer. "Are you jealous?"

Smirking, Pam took another hardy sip from her flute. "Don't think for a moment that Mr. Erringsworth could make me a jealous girl. We haven't taken **to** bed in months, and besides - no matter what he pays me, I refuse to enslave myself to his miniscule appendages." She winked, shooing the young woman away like she might shoo a kitten. "Fetch Mr. Sigma and tell him he still owes, and if he doesn't pay up front he can find somewhere else to satisfy his loveless marriage. Good girl."

She watched her walk away, shoulders frail and statuesque underneath the meager straps of her uniform. Florence was relatively quiet when it came to her employment - the loud ones were the girls Pamela wished to shove down a laundry shoot and drip water on for a few days. She kept the music loud for that reason.

Finishing her final sip, Pam wiped the remnants from her lips carefully with the back of her hand, setting the glass aside on the counter. "Nicholas," she called softly, almost too delicately for the atmosphere. The bartender buffed the spotless counter once more, nodding once and swiping her glass with a gentle "Yes ma'am." She reached over the counter and tugged free a small portion of grapes, picking one from the shriveled vine to pop into her mouth. The fruit was much less savory than she had high hopes for - mushy and warm. She set aside the useless vine and turned to overlook her girls, a vulture overseeing her young.

Effie approached, her drooping eyes trained on her employer's face. She'd been under Pam's wing for quite some time now and she'd learned the tricks of the trade, for the most part. Enslaving her body to strangers was her forte, at least that's what she said. Pam never hired out of pity, but she enjoyed go-getters, and Effie was one.

She looked incredibly tired, though. Pam never slept much either, but she didn't need it. The irregular sleep schedule was unsatisfactory for the first couple years, but she'd always taken care of herself and the others. "Got a boost for a working girl?"

A smirk played at the edge of Pamela's lips but she shrugged indifferently, slipping aside the secret compartment in her pearl ring, holding it out like a prince awaiting his damsel's encroaching marriage acceptance. Effie sniffed once, like a dog who was trained to do ridiculous vaudeville tricks in return for a treat. Relief clouded the girl's eyes almost immediately - most of he drugs that came through were contraband in small quantity, and half the time they were placebos anyway, nothing but powdered sugar or a pinch of mild salt. Of course, occasionally they were legitimate. Pam was no invalid.

She wiped below Effie's nose with her slender pinky finger, raising her eyebrows to take a sip from her replenished glass. "Mr. Danton is prowling, he asked for Claire. Have you seen her?"

"She's in number three." The stoic charm to her words was almost threatening - _she's in number three,_ as if "number three" might have been a theater box office or a church pew. "Almost an hour now."

Claire was relatively fast. The quickest and cleanest of the girls, for the most part. No tricks, no games - although she was quite the woman in bed. Pam sighed and straightened herself, abandoning her wine on the counter to wipe her hands. "Entertain Mr. Danton for a while longer. I'll make sure she's finished in the next five minutes."

The doors were numbered like hotel rooms, embellished to create the gilded city atmosphere. One, two, three. Pam pressed her ear to the door daintily, touching the door knob then thinking better of it. She knocked, four times. One, two, three, four. "Claire?" It was much gentler than she would have liked. In anger it was harpy-like and only became more decrepit with age, but it was velvety and mature all the same. There was no reply on the other side, so she grasped the doorknob and braced her body against it. It squeaked on its hinges and she gasped.

Blood, blood everywhere. It dripped from Claire's appendages through double cobra gash marks, a single red droplet forming at her dead gaped mouth. Pam clutched her chest with one hand and braced against the doorway with the other, feeling a lump forming in her throat. She hadn't much feeling for Claire, she was a dimwit with good intentions, but she was the second to be drained. "God damn them." She cried, hypothetically throwing herself at Claire's naked bedside.

Pam gave a final sniff and straightened herself, wiping the tears from underneath her eyes. Tears smeared the painting, and her face was a masterpiece. She was a stranger to whatever thing had done this, but their inhuman activities were ruining her business. Afraid? She supposed she was afraid, not so much of the vampires themselves, but she feared for the girls most of all. Her merchandise.

Of course, there were the men who seemed just as bad as vampires in every way. Rotten swines who sucked on girls, draining like they drained bottles of whiskey with much more gumption and expertise. But then again, she knew so much more about men than vampires - about vampires, she knew virtually nothing aside from their rigorous drive and apparent need to maim her employees. But a vampire **was** not a man, nor woman. She knew this.

 _That's right. God damn them._

Pamela knelt beside the body of the girl, reaching tentatively for her hand. Cold, cold like them. The room radiated warmth, the coals left over from the fire, smoldering as deeply as Pam's discontentedness as she searched for a pulse. Gone, it was all gone. The only blood left inside were the few drops leaking from the double puncture wounds, a last facade. Tears glimmered in her own eyes as she rose quickly, leaving the scene. She would not be emotional. She would take care of herself - this was not within her control.

Nicholas took care of the body quietly. Pam didn't care how he did it, but she knew he took her in the night and cut Claire's body into smaller, more manageable pieces. Pieces that could inconspicuously rot in silence. Pamela buried her face in her hands in her bed chamber, surfacing only to the face of a dead girl, merely a child. Her profession hadn't been full of vanity but she was just only starting out in the world. For this, Pam gripped the fire poker, scalding her hands as she doused the burning coals leftover in her own fire.

 _God damn them._

Honestly, she was more upset over losing her business. There would always be men, crawling as beggars out of the gutters to give their only coins for sex. But suspicions turned those who had been drained over in their sleep - no one knew of vampires. Claire had disappeared. Run off with a stranger passing through. Pamela was a smart girl - she'd covered up more than once. Vampires weren't the only killers. The scariest and most demeaning things were humans themselves.

Pamela had heard stories, many of them - superstitions, wives tales, legends. Dracula and belfries and long-fanged creatures with black widows peaks, horridly splendid sounding fairy tales from her distorted childhood. The shit her family, her dared-to-be-called-family, told to scare her into submission. Once she was a galant girl of the upper class with the perks of being beautiful little Pamela, and then she grew into a horrible woman with, God forbid, desires.

She met a vampire - a small woman in the face of silver moonlight. Caught her feeding against the cobbled shadows, regret and submission across her face. Fright. Pam hadn't been afraid, although the vampire woman seemed terrified of her, what she was. Soft-faced with the curvature of a woman of another century, thin and evenly proportioned. Alone on the streets at night, the predators lurked. But this vampire was not a predator. The beautiful woman let her prey go, speaking soft words of encouragement, a gentle coo to forget the pain and to forget his name, if she so desired it.

Vampires had no power over her. Oh yes, she was afraid, but not of being attacked, of the ability of such a creature to so ruthlessly take her life away, and in the presence of one, it wouldn't. It ran. Like a bullet in the night, leaving her be. Running from _her._

Yes, they were so powerful, which was so terrifying, and at the same time she was jealous. Jealous of their power and supposed immortality. How dare they?

XXX

"Miss De Beufort?" Nicholas shook her shoulder gently, tugging her from her reverie. Pam's head revolved as she failed to hide the shock in her eyes as she stood, brushing herself off. The place was empty, completely void of visitors. Nicholas wore his bowler cap sideways, askew on his head, and his overcoat was draped over his arm. "It is closing time, madam. Shall I walk you home?"

"No." She demanded, shrugging away from him. He was such a gentleman - gentlemen sickened her. They had alterior motives, always. "I'll walk myself."

"Goodnight." A girl brushed past her, out the big cherrywood door, gilded in a blade-like bronze piece, one that had been clinging to the door for centuries before this place became what it was. Some of the girls had already gone, as they always did, but a few stragglers were tidying, finishing late-like floozies. Pam nodded to them as they exited, leaving her and Nicholas alone until he tipped his hat and exited.

As they were at this time of night, the streets were deserted. In the night, the only sound was her heels, almost deafeningly loud as they clicked against the cobbled streets, burgundy red dress bunched in her fingers at the ankles to keep the hems from brushing the inevitable puddles.

A single ghost buggy passed, black horse clopping along in the streetlights. A coroner, hidden in the shield of shadows against his perch. He was on his way to retrieve a body, somewhere. And when it was gone, she was alone on the streets that did not frighten her in the least. She'd walked home on her own plenty of times.

She mounted some cobbled steps, clutching her purse against her matching red coat. As if she could sense a change in the air, in the minute sounds of the city night, Pam knew a man was following her. It may have been the steady clomping of his shoes, ghosting against the street. She let him follow her for a few paces, giving him the benefit of the doubt to _fucking turn around and go,_ but he continued.

Pamela wheeled around, gritting her teeth in the way she often did. "May I help you?"

He tipped his hat politely. Yes, he was good looking, she supposed, in the faded street lights. He wore a dented bowler hat and a suit as he stood below her in the street. "Beg pardon." He paused, enjoying the sight of her. Pam glared. "You are... Quite lovely."

It was nothing she hadn't heard before - men wanted one thing, a good fuck, and they'd say anything sweet and demure to get a girl to sit in their lap. Pam heard these words every day from them. With an internal growl, she pursed her doll-like lips.

"I'm off the clock. Come by tomorrow. We open at eight." She turned to go with a snarky smirk, red coat swinging at her wrists as she prepared to leave him stranded and starving for sex in the street. _Fuck you._

The man, so elequent and chivalrous a moment ago, grabbed her by the throat and involuntarily she screamed, struggling against his leather gloves. Suddenly helpless under his hands, putty, she screamed again, as if anyone would hear her at the hour.

"That's right, whore!" He laughed, but Pamela wasn't quite sure why, because yes, he was right, she _was_ a whore. Some sick, masochistic glint was in his eye as he opened his pocket knife with a quiet chink, holding it against her neck. Immediately she quieted for her life. "I like it when you struggle!"

Pam shut up, accepting the inevitable as she stared into her attacker's eyes. He stared at her as well, no doubt imagining what he was going to do to her, what he was going to make her do. Shit.

The only noise breaking the silence of the big was the gentle, masculine whoosh of coat tails and the flick of the knife, and Pam's unannounced scream. The attacker choked on the ground. He held his throat, falling into a heap, and Pamela suddenly realized that he'd been sliced across the throat by his own switch blade. At the feet of his killer, murderer seemed too kind of a word for such vermin, he slumped until he died.

The man, if he was a man, held his giant hand up as if he were thinking _"oh, indeed, this is my hand",_ studying the blood coating his fingers in a thick maroon syrup. Without lowering her eyes to her, he moved his thumb to his mouth, sucking the remnants from the pad slowly. When he let up on his thumb, the tip was clean and he made a soft smacking noise in the quiet of the street.

Pamela was gasping for air, mostly because her attacker had been choking her, but the vampire lowered his eyes to her finally after watching the man drown in his own blood at his worthy feet. His were of deep blue, almost shockingly so, oh so ageless and holding the qualities of every century.

"You are not afraid." His voice was rich, almost as black as his top hat. Almost whimsical, in a dark sort of way.

"I'm no stranger to dead bodies."

The vampire started removing a white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his long coat, coat tails fluttering in the chilled wind. Pamela shivered but he minded little. "The streets can be dangerous at this hour." It was almost matter-of-fact, condescending. She stared at him as he began cleaning the blood from his hands. Some was spilled on the street, but it had been a relatively clean and fast death. He buffed at his hand. "A lady should really be more careful."

Pam scoffed. Right. "If I meet a lady, I'll let her know."

This amused him, as evidence by the tug of his pale lips against his strange mouth. The vampire man glanced at her sideways for a moment before he deftly stepped over the body, coming to her aid. Oh, he was so tall. Pamela had been reprimanded for being a tall woman, although it never stopped her from wearing heels, but he was nearly gangly. Everything about him was giant, larger than life - immortal. He couldn't be human.

The vampire was too - too fantastic to be anything close to human. Perhaps it was the blonde of his hair contrasting with the fabric of his hat, the hunter's glint across his stance. Nothing about him seemed mortal, and even if Pam hadn't a clue as to the existence of vampires able to maim and kill, she would have known in that second.

He peered down at her, adjusting his white cravat with his clean hand. "Well that is a... Lovely dress." Purred the vampire, looking into her eyes, not her chest. "I'm sorry about all the blood."

She stuttered at his gaze - the way he looked at her was surprising. How could such a predator look at her without as much malice as the human being who had every intention of raping her? "It's o... It's fine." Was all she managed. Lashes fluttering against her round cheeks, she felt the need to grasp at him, to ensure he was something more than a phantom. She wanted to tell him that the blood splattered on her racy dress and coat was almost the same color, but he was retrieving something from his pocket.

"This should cover it." His husky voice thralled, dropping a few golden coins into her hand and letting it descend slowly, teasing her body that was impossibly close. She studied the blood stains on his hand as he did so, the coating he had not been able to remove. Pam never turned down money, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate, but her voice suddenly stuttered.

"Thank you... Mister?" Close to tears at his proximity, she looked up into his eyes once again.

The vampire merely smiled. Smiled, a smirking simper, and with the wind, he was gone. Gasping at the loss of his presence so suddenly, more sudden than any human could imagine, she sobbed, staring at the spot he had been standing. Empty cool air, a forgotten silhouette of the creature who, as much as she hated to admit it, had saved her life and dignity.

Sorry for a slow start! Review?!


	2. But I've Been Feeling Sleepy-Eyed

**Hello again! Thank you for the lovely reviews - it's crazy, I didn't think I would receive any! I would like to thank each of you that took the time to give it a try, and thank you to the mystery guests that left their thoughts.**

 **Here is chapter two. I hope you enjoy!**

 **Also, I don't own any True blood characters but the ones from my imagination.**

She tasted of disease. Sickness, contamination, fever. As the human girl stopped struggling beneath Eric's fingertips, he realized just how distasteful she really was. Even her smell was much less than inviting. Sighing, he disconnected from her neck, gasping for an unneeded breath as her ill blood stained his chin and coated his teeth. Unfortunately, the woman just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time of the evening.

Chimes sang in the distance, eerily reprimanding the chilled air as Eric gripped the pencil neck of the small woman, lowering his head for another taste of her blood. No, it wasn't good, but it would sustain him, at least for the time being. So often in these parts, the only options were stony, rigor harpies strolling the streets begging for money he knew they would only spend on more of the very useless poison that made their blood toxic. It sickened him, mostly - made him feel depraved and starved, no matter how much he drank. When he was with Godric, they made due with tougher times together - but there was no together, not now.

"Please," begged the woman in her croupy catscratch of a voice, clinging to his forearm as she swayed, tattered rags brushing the cobbled, damp street. "Take me. Take my blood."

The vampire sighed. They always felt the same about his intoxicating nip, the way humans gave him sustenance. It was almost orgasmic for them, he thought, to flow into him so willingly, like their bodies were built for this very task, tastefully crafted to give life to death itself. He leaned his head back and licked his lips, returning for more of the fowl blood. It was only a few hours before he needed to go to ground and this was most likely the best meal he could hope to find without wandering hungrily across the shadows of late San Francisco.

He had watched her. The woman in the red. She had emerged from the brothel after the telltale signs of the evening had quieted into the still night and all day walkers had retired, and Eric watched her from the shadows as she blended to the shadows she seemed entitled to, proceeding from the shadows and disappearing back into them each time the street lamp light fanned out no more to accentuate her otherworldly features.

Of course, it was easy for him to maneuver the shadows with only the swish here and there of a predator's lengthy tail, a whoosh of wind every now and then. She never could have seen him, even if she had been looking - and in the shadows Eric stayed, watching her from afar. At first, he thought she might make a nice meal. Surprisingly clean for this deserted hour of the night, dressed in high class attire with glossy hair that shone against the street lights.

And he was challenged. By a fucking human man, of all people.

Yes, perhaps he would have laid his hands on her. Fucked her senseless if she would allow it, but a human man questioning her invisible morals spiraled his compass and he killed him in front of her. Somehow, she was not afraid. In fact, she seemed more interested in the blood splattered on her gown.

She had a mischievous look about her, everything from the way her amethyst foam eyes twinkled in the dark like they were meant to illuminate it to her seemingly obvious indifference to death.

Reality grounded him as the poison woman flinched away from him, choking slightly until he let up on her neck with his careful fingertips, doing just as he was taught expertly to do. Taking her to the brink of death and holding her, suspending her there until whatever qualified as angels sang and her papery eyelids began to flutter involuntarily. Eric unlatched, letting his cobra-esque fangs drip the bloody remnants to his coated tongue, cradling the stranger's neck against his careful palm.

"More, more." She begged, and Eric guided her face to his, reaching to reposition the top had that had gone askew while he drank her.

"There will be no more."

"Alright." Her eyes glazed and she nodded, mesmerized under his influence.

"You will stop poisoning yourself with the cheap drugs you're buying off the street." He commanded, nodding and raising his flaxen eyebrows. She nodded fluidly, her earrings swinging from her soiled earlobes. "And when I am gone, you will forget me and cover your wound until it is healed. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Excellent. You have a nice evening." He tipped his hat and disappeared into the night, moving up and down the streets against the heathering gray of the shadows. Feeling full but not truly satisfied, returned to the small house he'd been staying in - a shitty tenant house that had been full of boarders whom he'd glamored out easily with little coaxing. They left at dawn and returned at nightfall to rest, and he never went noticed. There was a small, light tight crawl space, nothing cozy, but it worked for the time being.

In fact, Eric didn't know why he stayed here. Yes, he'd found a suitable place to rest and could easily find a meal if he desired. But there was no hunt, no excitement that he used to know with Godric. He found his maker very selfish at times, making him go to the darkest catacombs of the earth, searching for his own sense of belonging. He scoffed. A purpose - for a vampire? A vampire such as himself who lolly-gagged around the streets of San Francisco like a common criminal. No, this was no purpose.

Eric resented Godric in many ways - never for making him what he was, but for treating him like he understood nothing, like he wasn't trustworthy. And like he wouldn't be lonely. Nearly a thousand years beside his maker and only emptiness to show for it. So often he denied the crater eating through him as he wandered through the world without his companion. Of course, he had been released by Godric nearly a hundred years ago - had it already been a hundred? It seemed only yesterday that their bond vibrated ever so strongly, a light in eternal darkness, and when it was severed - well,Eric hadn't talked to another vampire for at least a year now, and hell, when was the last time he'd spoken to a human?

Licking his lips, Eric could still taste the remnants of the sullied harpy's blood - the poison that now coursed through his veins, a toxic substance that should never coincide with his own blood, Godric's blood, no matter how much he had come to resent him now. Remnants of the street man's blood still coated the edge of his lip, too minute a taste to be visible to the weak human eye, but he removed it with his tongue just the same.

His taste was sickly, like a human may recall weak tea. Watered down, if he should think so. The bastard. True, he could tell that the woman in the red dress was not just an average street hopkin. He'd watched her weave the streets like she owned the damn city, and deny the man who followed her the very sustenance he thought he deserved.

Certainly, she was intriguing. A human had never piqued his interest in this way. She hasn't cowered, or scurried away when he'd revealed what he was. If anything, she seemed interested, not frightened. He didn't glamor away the information, either - she made him feel... Queasy.

Silently, after crossing his arms over his chest, Eric closed his eyes. His body felt the sunrise coming, the undeniable pull to the earth that he felt every time the sun emerged from the very ground in which he slept. His rest was never fitful - by all means, a vampire was dead when he slept, but for the first time in quite some time - years, even - his mind was fitful.

He would find her again. He wanted to, he had to.

XXX

The outside of the brothel was quite deceiving, because the interior was - otherworldly. Everything gilded in bronze and airbrushed Persian architecture, an intention in the woman's place of business that was like a warm, wet hug. Standing in the doorway with his hat underneath one arm, he inhaled the scent of sex. Heavy, heated, almost metallic.

He waited for her to find him, watching the other women at their work. It was still rather early in the evening, but business seemed to be picking up momentum as the street lamps went on one by one.

"Good evening." He raised one flaxen eyebrow as the woman came to face him. She held herself so much more pridefully than the other girls - her girls. This was her own establishment, her profession.

The woman smiled, a pinched crooked smile. "Mr..."

"Mr. Northman. Pleasure. I would tip my hat, but it would be rude to wear it in a lady's establishment. Especially one so - crass."

Her lips pulled tighter, still that painted kabuki maroon color. It suited her, just as the way the deep purple she was clothed in suited her. Eric's eyes wandered from her to the other working girls, noticing that she knew just how to dress to drive a man crazy. Hmm, it was what a woman didn't show that drove a man insane.

"We have something to satisfy even the most exotic fancies." Stated the house Madame proudly, almost matter-of-factly as Eric scanned the women a little less than politely. Yes, some were quite pretty, some heavier, some looking starving. The woman had quite the collection of tramps.

"The chink, we call her Rubber Ruby. Show the gentleman why, would you darling?"

Yes, Rubber Ruby was quite attractive. She was flexible, the way she brought her leg behind her body, a glass ballerina in a simple music box. Eric chuckled. "Hmm. Delightful."

The madame smiled.

"Mmhm." Eric showed his approval once more as she turned to face him, smiling proudly. "But it is you I came to see."

The smile wore from her features in the way water weathered wood into a smooth, glassy surface. The mummery went on behind her as the girls mumbled amongst each other, some giggling, although the mistress kept herself together.

"A good merchant doesn't compete with her merchandise. Sir." She added tightly, lips forming into a pissy scowl.

Eric parted his lips just slightly, leaning in closer to her. She smelled of perfume, of sex, and of pleasure. Yes, Eric would take her. But in the way a good man takes a woman, no matter how wildly. "And a good customer knows everything has its price."

He felt her eyes on him for a moment as he strode off to peruse her shelves, knowing full well that she was aware of what he was. And still she acted if as he were no stronger than her, as if she were the gods who put him here in the first place, if the Norse still cared for a monster at all.

"I can make you feel good, mister." A plump girl dressed in a tight corset shoving her round breasts half out of the top stopped him by dragging her long, manicured nails against the inside of his thigh, teasing him in her very forward way. "I can make you remember my name."

"Oh? And what is your name, miss?" He stopped to admire the curl to her chestnut hair, the perfect ringlets that were too short for her round face.

"I can take you to number five and tell you." She winked, tracing closer to the apex of his thighs. He caught her hand and very carefully placed it back in her lap, winking at her as he continued to stroll through the merchant's merchandise. Many very pretty, painted ladies with unique attributes, but he didn't want any of them. He was a predator, but this was an entirely different type of hunt. A hunt where the hunter needed the hunted's approval, her agreement.

Humans had always seemed disposable to him. When he was first made, he might have thought otherwise, but Godric had taught him that the way the vampire survived, the way he hunted and received was nothing more than nature. Vampires were transient, merely passing through to wreak their silent havoc in the gray. Eric never wanted humans the way he wanted his maker, the way he needed to be comforted and reassured, beaten into vampire-hood by a little boy he so admired.

But this woman, the lady he'd saved in the streets. Her refusal to compete with the other girls was insanity, for she hadn't any real competition. Not one compared to her beauty, to her fearlessness. He could easily smell the illness and disgust on the other girls' skin, unappetizing, uninviting to a proper gentleman, even if he were human.

He could give her gold coins, jewelry, fabric, mansions. Whatever she desired, but she was much smarter than other girls. Snarkier, perhaps, but she knew something inhuman was killing her girls. And she also knew how to cover it up. But his kind was killing her employees, her merchandise, and her price was not monetary. She didn't need to speak out loud for him to know she wanted their heads impaled on pitch forks.

And if the lady desired, she received.

 **Well? What do you think? Tell me what you think so I can continue writing!**

 **Also, I thought it might be nice to tell you that each chapter is named after a song, specifically song lyrics. Kind of like the song titles in the show. So, the last chapter, I Was Following, is from the song lyric "I was following the pack of swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied round their throats," from White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes. I thought it was fitting ;)**

 **This chapter, But I've Been Feeling Sleepy-Eyed is from the song Joanna by Deaf Joe, and the lyric is "I've been feeling sleepy-eyed and with an ever growing smile."**

 **Thanks and please let me know what you think!**


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